German Past Tense 3 – “The Written Past”

and welcome to another part of the best German language online course ever. Today (after about 4 god damn years of waiting, for the long-time readers), it is time for a new episode of the epic HBO series called “German Past Tense”. If you haven’t watched the first 29 episodes you can find them here:

Yeah… okay, I’m being silly. Of course, it’s only two episodes so far. Part 1 was an overview about German Past tense and what we’ll have to learn, part 2 was all about the spoken past and today, in part 3, it is time for a look at:

the written past

In grammar jargon, this tense is known under the name preterit. But preterit is not intuitive at all and it sounds a bit scary, so we call it written past. Why written past? Because it’s one of THE main features of written accounts of stuff, while spoken past is what people use in daily life. Like… if Harry Potter were to tell Ron in German what he’s been up to all day on sick leave (sleeping, eating pizza, watching a movie, casting spells), he’d use spoken past. When J.K. Rowling will narrate the same stuff in “Harry Potter 45 – Harry Potter and the Cursed Lumbago”, she’ll use the written past. When you read a novel in German, you’ll see written past all over the place.

Now, that would be a great system – if German were consistent about it. But it isn’t. German is consistent about pretty much no rule. There’s a group of verbs for which the written past is also idiomatic in spoken language. For some, you can use both forms, for others the written past is the better choice, and then there are the ones you’ll REALLY love: The ones where the spoken past and the written past are both used, and mean two different things. But before we talk about that, we’ll learn how to build the forms. And for that, we’ll begin with a look at good ol’ English…

Past in English

When it comes to past tense, we can divide English verbs into two groups. And no, I don’t mean regular and irregular as linguistics does it. Linguistics – shminguistics, who gives a ship. We’re here for learnuistics. So, the first group uses a straight forward simple marker for the past: the ending “-ed”.

Yes, they’re irregular in so far as there’s no “-ed”. But there was. These forms got slurred in speech way back in the day, and this was then captured in writing. At the heart however is the standard “-ed” past marker. Now, this group that uses the “-ed”-maker including the verbs where the marker has been slurred is huuuuge. I’d say it makes up 80% of all verbs that the English language has to offer. That leaves about… uh… hold on… calculator… uh 20 percent of verbs for the other group. And that group would REALLY deserve the name iRRregular. They all have in common the same genius idea: screw endings, let’s change the stem. Which would be okay if the change was consistent. But it isn’t.

bring – brought, sing – sang, do – did, go – went**(**went is a mega exception, by the way because it comes from the verb “to wind”. Brits used the past form of one verb for the past of another.)

There are some patterns but let’s be honest … those patterns might be visible for a linguist. But for the average learner, it’s just random.

Anyway, so we have these two paradigms of marking the past: adding an “-ed” or changing the stem in some way. Now you’re all like “Fine, but what does this have to do with German?” Well, these two groups of verbs are also a thing of the Germanic languages in general. And guess which other language is Germanic besides English. German! Big shock, I know.

In German, we also have these two groups of verbs and if you open a textbook or sit in a course, sooner or later you’ll hear the official names of the groups: weak verbs and strong verbs. Like… the weak ones are called weak because they do what they’re told. They’re obedient suckers that live by the book’s boring “-ed” rule, while the strong verbs do what they freaking want and get crazy tattoos all over their stem. Rock and Roll, mofos. Yeah, strong verbs use strong language, too. German has the same two groups of verbs and the way that the past forms are built are really similar. But there are differences too. Let’s start with the so-called weak ones, the ones that get the “-ed” ending.

regular written past

In German, of course we have to first get the stem, so we have to remove the ending of the dictionary form. In the dictionary it says kochen (to cook) but the stem is only koch– . That’s what we add our ending to, which in German is not “-ed” but a simple “t”. I mean, German sounds a bit harsh and the “e”is silent anyway, right? So “t” makes a lot of sense. But we’re not done yet. You might have already noticed that German is kind of a sucker for endings (if you haven’t yet … well, get ready for an unpleasant surprise) and because it likes endings and pointless extra syllables so much, the “t” is followed by an “e”.

Yeah, I know I sound silly… but that’s the rhythm pattern and it’s already enough to sound like past tense. Now some of you are probably like “Emanuel… EMANUEL. What’s with the brackets. They’re just one of your unfunny jokes, right? RIGHT?” Uhm… no. The brackets [___]are there because to finish off the past form, we need to add an ending. “Whaaaat? But we already added the ending.” Well, yes. But we only added the ending for past tense. Now we need to add the ending for the person. Come on guys, don’t look at me like that. I told you German loves endings. Seriously though, the endings are really simple and they’re almost the more or less the same as the ones we need for the modal verbs in present tense.

The only difference is the e for the wir and sie form but hey, if we were to put it there, we’d wind up with “kochteen”, so it’s kind of a “common sense”-difference. Of course, you can study those endings if you want, but you could also just remember to add st for the du-form and nothing for ich and er/sie/es. Now, let’s look at some examples and see the rule in real life.

Again, pay attention to the difference in rhythm between the German version and the English version. One syllable vs. two syllables. Oh and also note that the structure of the present and the past sentences are exactly. So we don’t have to do any crazy verb-to-the-end-voodoo like for the spoken past. More examples.

Whoops… what was that? Warteten? That doesn’t only sound funny, it also doesn’t fit with our rule. We learned that the past form is stem + te + person ending; in our case wart + te + n …

wartten

But now, the past marker is not audible anymore. That’s why there’s an extra “e” between the “t” of the verb itself and the “te”

wart- e – te – n

stem – filler – past marker – person ending

This filler -e- is used for all verbs where the stem ends in “t” or “d” and it’s really only there so you can actually hear that the form is past. Which is why I’d say this isn’t really an exception. It’s more like a common sense bending of the rule so it’s actually practicable in real life. Like what we do with traffic lights. Or with the Controlled Substances Ac… anyways. This extra e is always there when the stem ends with a t or a d.

Sweet. So this was the regular way to build the past, which works for about 80% of all verbs. Problem is… just as in English, many of the most common everyday verbs belong to the other 30 perce..uhm… I mean 20.

irregular written past

And there really isn’t much to explain or understand. It’s really the same mess as in English. These verbs mark the past with a stem change. Sometimes, it’s just the vowel…

There are several possible changes and even though there are some patterns, the “look” of the verb won’t tell you with certainty which change it’s gonna be. Oh, and it won’t tell you if the verb is irregular at all…. just in case you’re wondering.

Now, of course these changes are not entirely random. Like… there are like 10 or so different stem change patterns so each verb belongs to a certain group and technically, you could learn these groups and their change pattern and then learn for each verb to which group it belongs and then when you have to build a written past you apply the stem change of the respective group… which sounds just as boring as it is. Seriously, learning the groups is not necessary. Thing is… because the English verbs and German verbs are siblings, English can often (not always) serve as a guide.

Sure, they’re not exactly the same but at least they can give you some idea about the direction of the change. Back in elementary school, when we had to learn the English forms we’d just learn the whole triplet through repetition by sound. And in German you won’t need that many written past forms anyway, and the ones you do need, you’ll see over and over, so I’d say just learn those directly. And we’ll go over the most important ones together but fi… oh, wait… there’s a call…. Lisa from Vermont, welcome to the show“Hey Emanuel, I have a question …” Sure, go ahead.“What about the endings? With the regular written past we had to add endings for the persons? Is that the same with these irregular ones? Or do we just use the stem?” Oh, great question… I almost forgot. Of course the irregular written past gets endings, too.“Phew… German… never without endings.”Haha… yeah… but it’s the pretty much the same endings as for the regular written past.“Oh… that’s good then. Can you do it for a couple of verbs?” Of course…

There’s a small difference with the extra “e” in the wir-form, but again, that’s just one of those common sense modifications.“Oh… I see. Can you do some real life examples for some of the most important verbs?” Yeah, we’ll actually go over all of the ones you’ll need but first we need to talk about the third group of verbs.“Uh… wait, the third group of verbs?” Yes. German always has to complicate stuff.“Haha… oh boy. Well, bring it on… “

Mixed written past

The two groups we had so far were regular (with the “te-“) and irregular (with the stem-change). The third group (a very small group) has a stem-change AND a “-te” ending; the best of both worlds. Or was it the worst? Anyway, take for instance bringen. If it were regular (or so called weak), it should be bringte-, if it were irregular it would have some sort of stem change… like, say, brang- or something.The actual form is

Why do you need those? Because they belong to that group of verbs for which the written past is also used in spoken German. Those verbs and how and when to use which form is what we’ll talk about now. And by “now”, I mean “in 4 years”, when the second part of the third part comes out…. Hollywood style.

Booooooooooohhhhhhhhhh….

Nah kidding:). It won’t be that long. I just feel like we’ve done enough for today, even though it wasn’t really that much new information because we know all this from English already. Yeah… if you think about it, this part really was kind of a rip off. So … uhm… don’t think about it, okay ;)? Seriously though, we’ve actually learned the forms for quite a few verbs today, so if you’re not familiar with those, make a list.

German is Easy – where the students have to make their own list.

Worst learning ever. So, that’s it for today. As always, if you have any questions about what we’ve learned so far or some cool suggestions on how to learn the irregular forms, just leave me a comment. I hope you liked it, and see you next time.

You’re right…. no procrastinating the house keeping this time. Done :D

Reply

Emrecakici

Hey Emanuel, once again you came up with some really good explanations. Can’t wait to see the next post about German Past Tense in the following 4 years :)

Just as a sidenote, I would like to add that the “learn – learned” pair can also be written as “learn – learnt” , so the verb “learn” might also belong to another group of verbs that you have defined. You could also add this information, just in case to avoid confusion.

Keep up the good work, thanks!

Reply

berlingrabers

“Learn” is kind of a quirky one. In American usage, it’s always “learn – learned – learned”; I always think of “learnt” as more Queen’s English (although you might hear it pronounced that way in spoken dialects in different parts of the US). But then, as far as I know the adjective “learned” (where the “-ed” is pronounced as another syllable, sometimes written “learnèd”) has always been around too.

And as far as I know, “earn” has “earned” and not “earnt” as simple past everywhere. (Same for “yearn.”)

Well, the adjective (as in “a learned man”) has two syllables: LEARN-ed

I don’t know that I’ve ever noticed British pronunciation of the participle particularly, but I do think it’s probably as spelled, with a “t” sound at the end, where most Americans would pronounce the “d” voiced. But I think there are probably some regional American dialects where people would SAY “learnt” even if they would write “learned.”

Actually, to take a similar example, for me there’s no particular difference between “burnt” and “burned,” though if pressed, I would probably use “burnt” more as an adjective and “burned” as simple past:

– Dad burned the toast, so we had burnt toast for breakfast. (based on a true story in which I am Dad)

I just wanted to send out a thank you to all who contribute to sponsoring memberships. I am here due to your generosity! Thank you so much!

Reply

person243

By the way, at a normal everyday German kitchen table, there are many question of the kind: “Was ist die Vergangenheit von “heben”? Hob, hebte, hub?” or “…von “backen”? “backte”, “bok”, “buk”?” (“hebte” and “bok” are wrong the others work) Or my favorite question: “Schreibt man “wand” oder “wandt”?” Answer: “The past of “winden” (to wind) is “wand” and the past of “wenden” (to turn) is “wandt”, (there is also “wendete” but that is used in another meaning, we’ll probably have to wait for the next part of this story to get an explanation). I also like “schelten” for its irregular stem: “Ich schelte.” = “I scold.” “Er schilt.” = “He scolds.”, “Er schalt.” = “He scolded.”, “Wir haben gescholten.” = “We have scolded.”, “Und wenn sie nicht schälten, schölten sie noch nicht.” = “And if they didn’t scold, they would still not scold.”

Oh, wow. Thanks for the connection of “schelten” and “scold”. That’s a nice one. And you’re right… there are quite a few verbs where German speakers are not that sure what the proper past form is. What’s interesting with “backen” is that (for me anyway) even “bok” sounds “right enough”.

– Ich bak/bok einen Kuchen.

Sure, they’re not correct but they get the message across for my brain :) I’m not gonna talk about these variable past forms though. After all, this is in the segment for very beginners and diving into the difference between “wendete” and “wandte” too much would be more confusing than it would be helpful. Maybe in some “past – the finer points” post or something…

Reply

berlingrabers

Not at all unknown in English either, for that matter. Officially (I mean, what you’ll almost always see in writing), “sneak” (roughly equivalent to “schleichen”) is regular – “sneak – sneaked – sneaked” – but I and pretty much every American I know would use “snuck” (which gets a red underline from Google Chrome) in spoken usage.

Even more frowned-upon is “brung” as simple past for “bring,” but you can see why a lot of people over the years have used it.

Reply

PeterF

As a native (british) english speaker, I would never use “snuck” but find it tolerable. However, “brung” just sets my teeth on edge.

It’s interesting that British English, which is often thought of (by non native speakers) as the more original English, has actually changed more in some respects than American English. One example would be sentence structure, particularly the placement of the preposition in a phrasal verb

– I eat up my dinner. – I eat my dinner up.

I’m no expert but I think British English would MUCH prefer the first version whilst in American English, both are fine. And the latter is closer to how it used to be, I believe, so British English moved toward a more strict approach on word order. And then this verb thing … “snuck” is probably the older version and sneaked the new.

Reply

Dave M.

snuck is fine (american english native speaker) but brung is one of those where you want to smack your kids for it.

Reply

simon0204

Hi!

Great lesson! I have a question about the conditional.. I couldn’t find a lesson on it so I guess here is a good place to ask :

I have noticed that we say “ich war” rather than “ich bin gewesen”, and also “ich wäre” rather than “Ich werde sein”.

Do the same verbs that use the written past in idiomatic speech also tend to use the Konjunktiv II to form the conditional ?

Clear yes. I’ll talk about conditional next year in detail, so stay tuned for that. Little correction: it would be “Ich würde sein”

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Anonymous

Hi Emanuel,

I am a newbie and am doing a marathon effort to go through all your online-course chapters. I started on 26th Dec (daily an hour or two) and I landed in this chapter today. I like your style of teaching. When I feel my reading energy levels drop down, your humour and facts inbetween wake me up… :-)

Meanwhile I have a question in the Mixed written past “Maria was betrunken und wir brachten sie nach Hause.”

The vowel stays consistent once it is in past, so it is “wir kannten” and “ich wusste”. “Könnten” is a form of “können”.

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Daryna

Hi, Emanuel! Thanks for the lessons and your good sense of humor :) You’ve gave me a free account and I really appreciate it, many thanks to all of you, who made it possible! This blog is not only very useful, but also motivates to study German…and English)

Reply

Alistair

Hi there! It’s an extremely fine point, but the present tense of our bastardized “went” was originally “wend” — a verb that is no longer used except in fossilized phrases like “to wend one’s way”. The verb “wind” is separate, still in use, and has the past tense of “wound”. Thanks for the blog! Great resource.

Reply

Anonymous

hello! is it normal to use in spoken the verbs sein and haben? ich war gestern zu hause. is that best to use for written or will i sound ok too? i lobe your blog by the way :)

Still, I have a question. Given any present tense verb in German, how can I identify to which group of written past verbs it goes to? Because although I understand now the base rule for the written German past is, I cannot properly sort out which present verb (or infinitive verb) will be a regular, irregular or mixed written past verb. Is there something to help with this, Emanuel? I really appreciate your help.

Well, a good hint is whether the ge-form is regular (ge-stem-t) or not (ge-ste(vowelchange)m-en, for example).

Other than that there is no real way to see it just by looking at the infinitive. –

But why would you want to do that anyway? The ones you need you should (and will) learn by heart quickly, and you won’t need the rest in the beginning. And later, you’ll get them one by one through “osmosis”